1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to broadcast programming systems, and in particular, to a method, system, apparatus, article of manufacture, and computer program product for establishing a connection between a mobile device and a set-top box to enable out of home streaming to the mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Television viewing systems (e.g., satellite and/or cable) may utilize an on-premises device/software the enables streaming of (recorded/stored) content to mobile devices. There are significant percentages of failure rates setting up the on-premises device/application and connecting the on-premises device/application with a mobile device when hidden behind network address translators (NAT) and firewalls. Customers, even with the help of call center support, are often unable to resolve connection issues by configuring the router appropriately (even if such customers are willing to attempt resolving the connection issues). To better understand such problems, a description of prior art streaming and configurations (between a set top box/on-premises device/application and mobile device) may be useful.
In television viewing/broadcast systems, digital video recorders (DVRs) are often used to record content. However, viewing of the recorded content is limited to the household in which the DVR is located. Mobile viewers on cellular devices, tablet devices (e.g., IPADs), computers, etc. desire to view recorded content on their mobile devices. Exemplary mobile devices include cellular phones, KINDLE FIRE, WINDOWS MOBILE, PC/MAC standalone applications, APPLETV, CHROMECAST, PLAYSTATION, ROKU, XBOX, etc. Such users may have the ability to navigate (using a web browser) to the provider's (e.g., DIRECTV, TIMEWARNER, etc.) website, access their user account, select on-demand content, and stream such on-demand content to their mobile device. However, the available content is disconnected from the content actually recorded by the user. Accordingly, the content actually recorded by the user may not be available, cannot be located, cannot be transmitted, etc.
To overcome such streaming issues, prior art systems may provide a small hardware device that is placed into a user's home (referred to as an on-premises device) and/or a software application (that is installed on a computer/existing home DVR). The on-premises device/application connects to the provider's network, examines the DVR for the recorded content and has the ability to rebroadcast/stream such content to the user's mobile device. The on-premises device/application also serves as a transcoding device that transcodes the media/content formatted for display on a home display system (e.g., big-screen television) to a small form factor suitable for the user's mobile device.
To configure/setup the on-premises device/application, the device/application determines the appropriate internet protocol (IP) address for the location (i.e., home/business) in which the device/application is located. Such a determination may inquire with the location's router for the external IP address and attempts to configure static port forwarding such that any incoming request to a particular IP address will be forwarded to the appropriate internal IP address/port for the on-premises device/application. Thereafter, external devices (e.g., mobile device, computer, etc.) can connect directly to the on-premises device/application and access to the DVR for streaming. Accordingly, the current state of media streaming uses static port forwarding on the customer home router. The configuration/setup utility utilizes UPNP (Universal Plug and Play), or manual (through subscriber messaging) configuration if UPNP fails. In particular, peers behind NAT firewalls may fail to connect due to blocking firewalls. Further, UPNP with port-forwarding may fail to connect or configure, as not all routers support such configurations. Alternatively, if static port forwarding is supported, such capability may not always be enabled by default. Another drawback to UPNP is the lack of “out of home” device activation.
The current rate of success for new subscribers setting up the on-premises device/application for the first time is low (e.g., around 45%). These difficulties cause repeated calls to customer care, and low customer adoption. In view of the above, what is needed is a hands-off, dynamic mechanism for setting up/configuring a connection between an on-premises device/application and a mobile device/computer outside of the network.